Aston Villa secure a point in 1-1 draw at Anfield

Match Stats

Liverpool dominated the game with 69.5% compared to Aston Villa 30.5% and found themselves asking how they didn’t win yesterday with far superior attempts at goal with 22 shots but only were on target on 5 occasions.

This has been the story of Liverpool season to date failure to convert shots from crosses.  With Liverpool’s possession dominance they were able to complete 504 passes out of an attempted 611 giving them a total 83%.

Aston Villa stats are dwarfed by Liverpool stats only managing 64% pass completions from 261 attempted passes and able to successfully completed 167 passes.  Even though Liverpool had more possession and completed more passes Liverpool only managed to get 13 crosses into the box.  Liverpool had attempted nearly 4 times that’s amount with 48 crosses.  Shay Given was pretty much involved in the game and the fact he was made to take 24 goal kicks.  Liverpool were sloppy at times as Aston Villa were able to intercept on 32 occasion 3 of which were in the box and the other 29 occasions were interceptions in passing.

Aston Villa only managed to get near Liverpool’s goal of 5 occasions even though they got a goal they only managed to get another shot on target with 2 chances blocked and one off target.

Aston Villa’s season has been hard hit by injuries this week with notable absences from Richard Dunne, Darren Bent, Stiliyan Petrov, Nathan Delfouneso, Carlos Cuellar, Charles NZogbia, Fabian Delph and Ciaran Clark.  Aston Villa’s squad yesterday consisted of 7 academy players being drafted into the game this shows how bad the squad has been hit.

This season has disappointed Aston Villa fans; with the appointment of Alex McLeish to the fans disgust the team has also been blighted by injury.  Aston Villa find themselves in the unfamiliar position of being dragged in to the relegation zone at 15^th position just 6 points ahead of the drop zone.

Aston Villa managed to get themselves a point at Liverpool yesterday which will help them physiologically ideally needing 6 points from the remaining 7 fixtures but they haven’t been blessed with a decent end of season run-in.

On Monday Aston Villa welcome Stoke City to Villa Park which will be an interesting game a point would be duly welcomed as Stoke are a tough side to break down.  Stoke City have a very physical squad with most players average 6 ft and play a very direct game.

Aston Villa remaining fixtures:

• Stoke City (H)
• Man Utd (A)
• Sunderland (H)
• Bolton Wanderers (H)
• West Bromwich Albion (A)
• Tottenham Hotspurs (H)
• Norwich City (A)

It’s going to be a nail-biting run in for Villa – they need to get their main players back fit as soon as possible.